“For the year!” she’d exclaimed to Muriel over the phone that night. “What am I going to do?”

“You could always tell him the truth, tell him about Nick,” Muriel suggested.

That was out of the question. “Oh, no, then he’d never even let me out of the house!”

Elissa’s father had not allowed her to date at all until she was sixteen, and he only agreed to that after a year-long campaign she began the day she turned fifteen. (Fortunately, her mother and her brother, JJ, had both taken her part, or she probably still would not be allowed.) And still, as a prelude to the first date, each boy had been subjected to at least a half hour in the living room with Jack, who would sit in his chair by the fireplace wearing his old slippers, smoking his pipe, and staring at them with his icy blue eyes. The boys, making faltering stabs at conversation, would be met with only silence and cool, appraising looks, puffs of smoke. Most were soon reduced to cold sweats, flushes, indigestion. After all, Jack was a legend at Pine Rapids High: His 1915 rushing record still stood, and his Great War uniform and record of service were prominently displayed in the front foyer. This was the man in Pine Rapids whom a boy’s father, when in need of a favor, went to with hat in hand.

Needless to say, Elissa didn’t have many dates, and, of those boys brash enough to ask for one, few asked for a second. And now Jack was standing in the way of things with Nick. Elissa felt her life was utterly hopeless. Her father was just so old—she imagined he always had been—and obviously had no idea about romance or anything that was important. And the worst thing was, he didn’t even try to understand!

Muriel told her that she would just have to write to Nick and hope that she could persuade Jack soon to let her take another trip to La Crosse. So, with a heavy heart, Elissa had done so, still wondering if perhaps she had imagined the whole experience, the entire realm of feelings. It wasn’t possible that Nick could feel such unreasoning excitement and anguish about her—was it? Plagued with such doubts, she hedged her letter a bit, was friendly but not gushing. She was apologetic, even regretful, but took care not to let any of her tears fall onto the letter. She did not put a lipstick print on the envelope. When she mailed it, she was as depressed as she had ever been in her life, and spent the next few days hollow-souled, bereft. She had supposed he would not even bother to reply, since it was unlikely they’d ever see each other again.

But now: a letter! She tore it open; Muriel read over her shoulder.