CHAPTER NINETEEN
AMELIA RIDES HER BIKE TO Molly’s farmhouse and arrives by nine o’clock, two hours before the stand opens, dressed in one of her newer, brighter Meade Creamery polos and a pair of white twill shorts. Grady answers the door in running shorts and no shirt, his hair wet from a shower.
“Hey, Amelia. I didn’t expect you here this early.” He holds the door open with his foot.
“I’m on the schedule for first shift and I don’t want to leave the girls shorthanded,” she says flatly, and quickly averts her eyes, though she can almost feel the heat of his tanned skin as she passes him in the doorway. “Can you please put a shirt on?”
“Oh. Sorry. Of course,” he says, though Grady doesn’t seem embarrassed to be half-naked in front of her. Amelia remembers walking through a coed dorm on a campus tour of Gibbons; when the group stopped to look at a study lounge, a boy walked out of the bathroom dressed only in his boxers. He excused himself, completely unselfconsciously, while passing between Amelia and her mother to cross the hall, and his body wasn’t even half as good as Grady’s. Maybe this is what dorm life does to you?
He holds out a plate balanced in his hand like a waiter. “You hungry?”
“I’m fine,” she says, because she’s there to work, not hang out, though his eggs do smell good. They’re fluffy and cheesy, just how she likes. White toast, too, glistening with melted butter.
“You sure? Eggs are my specialty.”
“Boys who can’t cook always say that.” That’s what her home ec teacher used to say, anyway.
“Well, I’m also ace at doctoring up cafeteria ramen. Just give me access to a half-decent salad bar and some hot sauce and I can make ramen magic happen.”
“I’d rather we get started.”
“Suit yourself.” Grady shovels the eggs into his mouth in three bites before setting his plate on a foyer table.
She clears her throat. “Did you get your paper in last night?”
“Yeah. About a minute before midnight.” He grabs a T-shirt hanging on a doorknob and slides it over his head. Then he claps his hands once. “I think it’s safe to say that the recipes are not in the basement. So let’s start clearing the first floor room by room. Cool?”
“Cool.”
Amelia begins in the kitchen. She checks every cabinet, empties two junk drawers. She shakes out every cookbook. She drags one of the kitchen chairs over to see the top of the refrigerator.
Nothing.
Meanwhile, she hears Grady rummaging around in the back bedroom. He emerges more disgusted than disheartened.
“What’s wrong?”
He almost can’t make the words, like he’s got a mouth full of sour candy. “Doing a granny-panty raid in my deceased great-aunt’s room is not exactly what I had in mind for this summer. Have you finished in here?”
“Almost,” she says, stepping down. “I still need to check the pantry.”
He opens the pantry door and gasps. “Hells! Yes!”
“What?”
After a fist pump, he reaches in and removes a tin box marked RECIPES. “Boom! We’re back in business!”
He pops the lid off and dumps all the index cards onto the table. Amelia joins him and they begin checking each one, front and back, like some kind of matching game. One that, after a minute, they lose.
Grady slumps into a seat. “I really thought . . .”
“Come on. Shake it off,” Amelia says. “Where do we try next?”
Amelia follows him into the living room but splits off at the foyer, diligently searching places she is 99.9 percent sure the recipes won’t be, like in the pockets of the coats hanging in the hall closet, and tries not to feel disappointed when she comes up with nothing but loose change and lint.
Then she joins Grady, sitting cross-legged on a rug, pulling books out of the bookshelves and fanning through the pages while Grady paws through the drawers of a writing desk.
On the second floor, the air is hotter, drier. By the time she reaches the landing, Amelia can feel the back of her hair sticking to her neck.
Grady quickly reveals what’s behind each of the closed black doors they pass as they make their way down a white hallway. “That’s the guest bedroom, that’s my grandpa’s old room, a bathroom, linen closet.” At the end, the roof is angled, coming down in two sharp peaks, with one door in the center. “That’s Molly’s bedroom.”
Amelia wrinkles her nose. “I thought you said she slept downstairs.”
“She did. This is the one she had when she was a kid. I’m putting you in charge of going through it, for the underwear situation I previously mentioned.”
“Whatever you say,” she says breezily, though excitement is fizzing inside her. She has the doorknob half turned when she hears Grady open a different door.
“But let’s start in here,” he says. “I think this is where we’ve got the best chance.”
The room is small and stuffed to the ceiling. There’s a desk on top of an oblong braided rug, and a fireplace that’s been filled in with red brick. Stacks of cardboard file boxes—the same as the ones Grady had open downstairs—cover every other available bit of space.
“This was her office,” Grady says. “Though I don’t know how she worked in here, seeing as it’s ten degrees hotter than in any other room in the house.”
Amelia approaches the desk and pulls on the lower of the two drawers. It’s packed tight with green folders. She’s not sure she could squeeze in a single piece of paper more if she tried.
“They have to be in here, don’t you think?” Grady says, the desperation in his voice obvious. “I mean, clearly she kept everything.” He wipes his forehead with his sleeve as he walks toward the one window. “Let me try this again,” he says, thrusting his hands upward against the window frame to try and pop it open. The harder he tries, the more embarrassed he gets. “Dammit!”
Amelia comes over with the intention to assist but gets distracted by the perfect view the window provides of the ice cream stand. She checks her watch; it’s already a few minutes before eleven. One of the girls, ant-sized, is sitting on top of a picnic table, waiting to be let in. Cate’s truck isn’t there yet.
Even though it’s hot as an oven, Amelia shivers, thinking about Molly Meade standing in this very spot, looking down at them. It had felt, on some level, like the place belonged to the girls, the Meade Creamery girls, since Molly herself was never around. Now Amelia sees how foolish that was. She’d been watching them the whole time.
“Grady, I’ve got to go and open the stand.”
“Doesn’t Cate have a key?”
“No.” Amelia doesn’t say any more. That Cate hadn’t wanted hers.
“Well, I have to go to the bank, so why don’t I let them in, and give them the heads-up that I’ll need you up here for a couple of hours. On my way home, I’ll swing by Walmart and grab us a fan for up here. I’ll try to be back as quickly as I can.”
Amelia nods. “Okay.”
Grady hurries down the stairs, and a few minutes later, Amelia hears the engine of the pink Cadillac turn over. From the window, she keeps her eyes on Grady, now back to his classic handsome in jeans and a navy-and-green-striped polo shirt, as he races down to the stand and unlocks the door. Cate pulls in right then, ten minutes late, and the two cars pass each other, Cate and Grady pausing to talk for a moment, before Grady pulls onto the road and Cate parks.
Amelia pulls herself away from the window and returns to the job. She opens a closet and finds more boxes, and potentially the promise of slightly better organization. At the very back, on the bottom, is one box marked 1945.
The first year of the Meade Creamery stand.
Amelia wrestles it out, hope fluttering inside her heart. Inside are lots of scraps of paper, old time cards from the punch clock, invoices, a receipt for Molly’s Emery Thompson ice cream maker, which cost her eight hundred dollars. Amelia is surprised it was so expensive—weren’t movies like fifty cents back then?—but clearly the machine was worth every penny.
But no recipes.
Amelia does, however, find a photo—black and white, scalloped edges—of the girls from that first summer, posed in front of the ice cream stand, flexing their scooping muscles, big wide smiles. They must have been excited, on the cusp of something new, lined up in crisp white blouses instead of the modern polos.
Amelia’s phone rings. It’s Cate.
“How’s it going up there?” she asks.
Amelia slumps backward, against the wall. “I don’t know when I’m going to be down today. Do you want me to call one of the other girls? Get someone to cover for me?”
“It’s fine. If we get swamped at lunch, I’ll text you. Where are you right now?”
“Sitting in Molly’s office, sweating my butt off. Hold on.” Amelia puts the phone down and peels off her Meade Creamery polo. It’s way cooler in just her bra.
“Are you having fun? I’d think you’d love going through her stuff.”
“I’m too stressed to enjoy it.” Suddenly the air on the line sounds weird. “Cate?”
Amelia’s phone rings again, but this time, not with a call: a video chat. She slides her finger across the screen and sees Cate in the stand office, her feet up on the desk.
“Is that some kind of new uniform Grady’s having you try out?” Cate cackles.
“Shush up! I just took it off. I told you, it’s a million degrees up here!”
“Relax, I’m just teasing. Come on. Show me something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! I want to see her house!”
Amelia reverses the camera and pans the office.
“Boring. What else?”
Amelia almost doesn’t say it. “Well, her childhood bedroom is across the hall.”
“Why are you holding out on me?”
Amelia bites her finger. “Okay, hold on.” Aiming the camera in front of her, she walks down the hall. She turns the knob and pushes the door wide open.
“Holy crap,” says Cate.
It’s a big, dreamy space with six-paned windows on both sides of the sloping ceiling. One has views of the roadside and the other overlooks the back fields. Molly clearly got the best room in the house, likely because she was the Meades’ only girl.
Amelia walks over to the vanity. It’s neatly arranged with dozens of thick glass bottles, ceramic tubs, a tortoise comb. A square gold compact with pink pressed powder sits next to a bottle of Mavis talcum powder. There are two Revlon lipsticks in colors named Rosy Future and Bright Forecast. That had to be, Amelia thinks, some marketing strategy for the girls left at home during World War II. She picks up a pineapple-shaped glass bottle of deep amber liquid with a tiny pink bow fastened just under the nozzle. The name sends her eyes rolling—Vigny’s Beau Catcher—though she’s curious enough to take a sniff. The scent is warm and sweet. Orange blossoms and honeysuckle and sandalwood.
“What’s that on her vanity mirror?” Cate asks. “Pictures?”
Amelia sets the perfume down and aims the camera. Wedged into the mirror frame are more black-and-white photos. Molly and her girlfriends at the lake. Molly holding a baby calf.
“Any of that hottie Wayne Lumsden?” Cate asks.
“No. Maybe because it was too painful to see his picture,” Amelia reasons.
“Closet, please!” Cate says.
Inside are the most gorgeous clothes. Silk and satin party dresses with billowing skirts, day dresses in crisp cotton, tea-length skirts, soft blouses. Wedge sandals and pointy high heels. A woven straw sun hat.
“Anything else?” Cate asks, a little bored.
Amelia spins around and walks toward Molly’s four-poster bed. It’s twin-sized, with one pancake pillow and white sheets with yellow scalloped edges that are hand-sewn. Her quilt is gorgeous, a checkerboard of pastel squares that make flower shapes and sunbursts on white backing. Next to that is a nightstand, white wood, with one pull drawer and a pink glass knob.
“It’s kind of weird, don’t you think?” Amelia muses. “This looks like the room of someone who died during high school, not who lived until she was almost ninety.”
“Hey, Amelia, try lifting up her mattress!”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where girls keep their secrets!”
Amelia turns her phone around so Cate sees her. “What secrets do you keep under your mattress?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Cate says coyly. “Come on! The recipes could be there!”
Amelia sets the phone down on the carpet and kneels on the floor next to the bed. The mattress is heavy, but she manages to lift it a few inches.
“Anything?” Cate asks.
Amelia stares down at a pale pink and clothbound book, the word DIARY stamped in gold script on the cover.
“Nope,” Amelia says, letting it fall. And then, quickly, “Hey, Cate, I should go. The sooner I find these recipes, the sooner I can come back down. Text me if things get busy.”
“Don’t forget to put your shirt back on before Grady gets home,” Cate teases.
The diary has that old-book smell that’s hard to describe. Amelia flips through it without reading. The paper feels brittle against her fingers. The pages were probably white once, but they’ve turned something closer to khaki. The handwriting is a neater, crisper version of Molly’s familiar old-lady cursive.
Amelia knows she shouldn’t. Molly Meade was so private. But Cate’s right, Molly’s diary may be the key to finding the recipes. Curiosity tugging at her, she turns to the first page.
September 22, 1944
Every other boy was already on the bus, hidden behind fogged-up windows, though some had wiped space off for a last goodbye wave to their families. The bus driver had one boot up on the tire, one boot on the street, while Tiggy tried to make small talk with the driver, bless her, to give Wayne and me a few seconds more together.
“You know, the sooner I leave, the faster I’ll be back.” He said it as a joke, but I started to cry. He was ready to go. Eager to fight. And I didn’t want to let him.
“Promise me,” I said. “Promise me you’ll come back.”
“Of course I will, Moll Doll,” he said, taking my face in his hands, wiping away my tears with his thumbs. He kissed me on the lips, then brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it, almost on top of the engagement ring. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, this was a trick to make me let go of him.
And then, suddenly, I was cold. I closed my coat and watched Wayne bound onto the bus, giving the driver a chummy clap on the shoulder as he passed.
We walked home. Tiggy had to lead me because I’d forgotten the way. She kept saying it would get easier, but never easy. On some level, I knew it. My brothers have been gone a year already. Tiggy’s brother nearly two. But this time, it’s different.
This is my love.
The realness, the rawness of the emotion have Amelia shaking like a leaf. She looks up from the page. Would Molly have wanted this? Some stranger, in her bedroom, reading what would turn out to be the most painful experience of her life?
No. Absolutely not. No girl would.
Except . . . what if Molly wrote the recipes inside? There is a good chance of this. The timing is right.
Amelia carefully thumbs through the entire diary, gently, scanning each page. Not reading, but allowing her gaze to land lightly here and there, a word, a number, something recorded in a way that resembles a recipe or a list of ingredients. If she finds something, she’ll pull out the relevant pages, show Grady only what he needs to see and maintain Molly’s privacy.
When she reaches the end, she goes back through once more, just to be sure.
But no, there’s nothing.
And yet she can’t bring herself to put the diary back under Molly’s bed.