Besides, she explained to her diary, he probably just feels sorry for me. Everyone knows what a fool I’ve been.

Then came the Saturday in early April when Elissa bumped into him as she came out of Holman’s Market, on the corner of First Street and Jefferson Avenue, laden with a brown-wrapped roast that her mother had sent her to pick up for tomorrow’s dinner. Grocery shopping had just been made very complicated with the beginning of meat rationing a week before, and Elissa, the roast tucked under her arm, was busy counting out her stamps, wondering how much more meat they would be able to get this month now that the three-pound roast had cost them six ration points and one dollar and eleven cents. Nobody quite understood the point system yet, not even Mr. and Mrs. Holman.

Engrossed in the problem of the stamps, she was just out the market’s corner door and about to turn south down Jefferson when her shoulder bumped against someone. Fortunately, the roast was wedged tightly enough under her elbow that it stayed put. She looked up, and saw Ty Lofgren’s brown eyes.

“Excuse me!” he said.

“Oh, pardon me. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

It was a typical early-April day in Pine Rapids, the melting snow adding a pleasant moistness to the air and the streets, the damp surfaces and shrinking piles of snow all seeming to glitter a bit, reflecting the sun, the warmth of which could be sensed on face, hands, and hair, despite the coolness of the air. Cars tooled by on First Street in no particular hurry, tires sluicing through puddles with a joyful noise. Elissa had left her coat unbuttoned and wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves. Similarly, Ty’s jacket was unzipped, his head and hands bare. His brown hair was a little messy from the breeze. It was true that Elissa had volunteered to go to the market—perhaps, though she would not have admitted it even to herself, in anticipation of such a meeting.