“Dolly,” Dolly said. Oh, this was going to be a disaster. She began to worry that she hadn’t dressed correctly for the occasion: Mrs. Fryt probably didn’t approve of the red ballerina slippers she had just purchased at Birnbaum’s, or her glossy red fingernail polish. And her dress—white, flaring, sleeveless, trimmed in red—was probably too risqué for the Ladies Aid. Well, she was here now, and might as well make the best of it.

She smiled. “I brought some cookies for you, Mrs. Fryt.”

“Why, look there! It’s our newest member!” Emerging from the parlor was Corinne Olson, who had been the one to issue Dolly the invitation. Taking Dolly’s shoulders in her large hands, Corinne looked down at Dolly with a wide smile that narrowed her blue eyes to tiny slits. Her hair, done up in a twist, was so fine and blond that whatever silver there might have been blended right in; a wisp of it had escaped, and skimmed the side of her powdered full-moon face. She wore a blue dress with a delicate white floral pattern, and the girdle underneath was obviously too tight for her full figure. The essence of Corinne—the delicate scent of her powder, especially—reminded Dolly of her grandma, and Dolly swallowed back a lump that rose inexplicably in her throat.

In a blur, the wafers were whisked away, and then Dolly was in the parlor, where the floral and lace theme was perpetuated, only the spider plants being fewer. A brightly patterned quilt on its frame stretched almost the width of the room, and two ladies were seated working on it, facing the parlor door. They stopped their conversation and looked up at Dolly with matching Lutheran smiles.

At Dolly’s side, Corinne Olson brushed her hands together. “Thelma, Jeannette—meet Dolly Magnuson, if you haven’t met her before. She and her husband are new in town—just about a month now, isn’t it, Dolly? She’s moved here from Minnesota and doesn’t know a soul, and so, when I met her at church on Sunday, I said for her to come on over and we’d put her right to work!”

As the ladies greeted her, Dolly felt much too vivid, her hair too black, her lipstick too red. Most of all, she felt much too young—the other ladies all looked old enough to be her mother, if not her grandmother. But as Corinne Olson sat down facing the window, knees under the quilt, Dolly sat to her right, holding her sewing basket in her lap. With a glance through the fringe of lace curtains, Dolly noticed that the window provided a perfect side view of the grand dove-gray house across the street.