Elaine’s heart. But most of all, she wanted to know if the cellophane had worked, and where she could get some of her own.
She clicked through to the next page.
Monday, June 27, 1955
Janet had made a terrible mistake.
Two weeks ago, when she’d written the letter, she’d still been flush with her discovery. She hadn’t been thinking clearly.
But her mother was always telling her she was rash and reckless, and Janet had finally proven her right: it was only after the postman had already whisked her letter away that she’d realized a reply could come at any time. That it would be dropped into the family mailbox alongside her father’s Senate mail, her mother’s housekeeping magazines and her grandmother’s postcards from faraway cousins. That anyone in the family could reach into the mailbox, open that letter and discover the truth about Janet in an instant. And that they could realize precisely what that meant.
So Janet had spent every afternoon since perched by the living room window, listening for the postman’s footsteps on the walk.
Each day, when she heard him coming, she leaped to her feet and tore out the front door. Sometimes she beat him there and burst outside while he was still plodding up the steps to their tiny front porch. On those days, she forced a smile and held out trembling fingers to take the pile of letters from his hand.
Other days she was slower, and stepped outside just as he’d departed. Those days she pounced on the stuffed mailbox, flinging back the lid where JONES RESIDENCE was written in her mother’s neat hand.
Then there were afternoons like this one. When Janet was too late.
She’d made the mistake of getting absorbed in her reading, and when she heard the slap of brown leather filtering through the window glass she’d told herself it was only the next-door neighbor, a tall Commerce Department man who left his office early in the evenings and never looked up from polishing his black-rimmed glasses.
And so Janet’s eyes were still on the page in front of her—it was one of her father’s leather-bound Dickens novels; Janet’s parents had been after her to read as many classics as she could before she started college in September—when the mailbox lid clattered. Before she realized what had happened, her mother’s high heels were already clacking toward the front door. “Oh, there you are, Janet. Was that the postman I heard?”
Janet bolted upright, the Dickens spilling from her lap. She bit back a curse as she knelt to pick it up, smoothing back the bent pages as her mother frowned at her. “Really, Janet, you must take more care with your father’s things. And what is that getup you have on? You know better than to wear jeans in the front room, where anyone walking by could see you.”
“Sorry, ma’am.” Janet tucked the volume under her arm and stepped past her mother, narrowly beating her to the door. Janet was an inch taller than Mom now, and her legs were still muscled from cheerleading in the spring.
She jerked open the front door and slid her hand into the mailbox before Mom could intervene. Three letters today. Janet tried to angle her shoulders to shield the mail from view.
The first two letters were for her father, in official government envelopes with his address neatly typed on by their senders’ secretaries. The third letter bore Janet’s name.
It had come.
A short, sharp thrill ran through her as her fingers reached for the seal. Would this be the day everything changed?
Two weeks ago, she’d discovered that slim paperback in the bus station. That night, she’d read every page and found herself so enraptured, so overwhelmed, that she couldn’t help writing to its author. Now here it was—a reply. The author of that incredible book had written a letter just for Janet.
But Mom was still standing right behind her. Could Janet slip the letter into her blouse without her seeing?
“What’s gotten into you today?” Mom reached over Janet’s shoulder and plucked all three letters from her hand. Simple as that. “What’s this one with your name?”
“It’s nothing.” Janet ached to snatch the letter back, but forced herself to breathe instead as Mom tucked her finger behind the seal. Everyone in the family had always felt free to open Janet’s mail. She was eighteen years old, but still a child in their eyes. She’d have to think of a lie quickly.
The letter had been addressed to Janet by mistake. That was what she’d say. Whoever had sent it must have found her name on some list of recent high school graduates.
No, of course Janet couldn’t possibly imagine what the letter might refer to. She’d never heard of any “Dolores Wood” or “Bannon Press.” As a matter of fact, the letter could be a cleverly disguised Communist recruitment tool. For safety’s sake, they really ought to burn it before the neighbors saw.
Though the idea of burning that letter, before she’d even had a chance to read it, made tears prick at Janet’s eyes.
“Oh, it’s from the college.” Mom withdrew a single sheet of paper from the envelope and scanned it. “It isn’t important. Only a packing list.”
“The college?” Janet hadn’t even glanced at the return address on the letter, but there it was. The letter was from Holy Divinity.
Janet couldn’t believe she’d been so foolish.
“Well, you won’t be needing this.” Mom tucked the letter into the pocket of her apron. “They must send it out to all the new girls, without regard for which will be moving into the dorms.”
Janet nodded, hoping her mother couldn’t hear her heart still thundering in the silence.
“Are you all right?” Mom frowned again. “You look flushed. Your father and I had planned to go to the club for dinner, but if you need us to stay home—”
“It’s nothing, ma’am.” Janet shook her head, but she could feel blood rushing to her cheeks under her mother’s scrutiny. “I, ah—I have to get ready for work or I’ll be late.”
Mom’s frown deepened. “I didn’t realize you were working tonight.”
“I am.” Janet wasn’t. Another stupid, rash thing to say. Now what could she do? Put on her uniform and show up at the Soda Shoppe, ready to trot milkshakes out to station wagons on her night off?
To put off that decision, Janet dashed past Mom into the row house and ran up the narrow wooden stairs, her footfalls echoing behind her. Dad was always after her not to run in the house, saying it would disturb her grandmother’s rest, but Dad wasn’t home. Besides, Grandma always said it did her heart good to hear a child scurrying about the house and that Dad should shut his cake hole.
Janet reached the second-floor landing and threw open the door of her small bedroom, the hot air hitting her like a steaming kettle. The room was the same as always—the bed neatly made with its delicate pink spread, the flowered wallpaper that was starting to peel around the edges after a decade of Washington summers, the round mirror over her dresser with photos
