“I hate to agree with them, but they’ve got a point. Not the having you committed part, but I’m worried for you. I’m sure your folks are too. You’re brilliant. There’s no question about that. But you don’t know anything about the world out there. You don’t even like people. How are you going to get along?”

“I’m going to miss you.”

“You’d better miss me. Who else would put up with your bookwormy ways?”

“That’s not even a word.”

“It is if I say it is.” Anna frowned. “Will you promise to write? Even if you can’t say much, it will be good to hear from you.”

“I promise to write if they’ll let me.”

“America is a free country. They’d better let you write your best friend!”

“I expect to see you on the newsreels every time I go to the theater.” Nora tried not to choke up.

“Forget the newsreels. I’m going to be in the main feature.”

“Of course you are.”

“Are there going to be lots of boys where you’re going, you think?”

“I don’t know. Probably far more guys than gals.”

“Well, good odds for you, then. Just don’t lock yourself away in some science lab, okay? Live a little. Find a fella. It wouldn’t hurt you to go on a date, you know.”

Nora blushed again. “I’m not you. Boys don’t flock to me the way they do you.”

“Nora Lindstrom. You’re a real looker. Boys don’t ask you out because you don’t give them the time of day. Let ’em see that beautiful smile. Flash those pretty hazel eyes. Style that luxurious blond hair in curls. You’ll be beating them off with a stick.”

For reasons Nora didn’t want to examine, the idea nauseated her.

The movie theater was hopping, as it always was on a Friday night. It mattered not that the feature film, The Pride of the Yankees, had been out for two months, nor, for that matter, that Mary already had seen it three times. Thanks to her dad, Henry, Mary had been raised with a baseball in her hand, and Lou Gehrig’s tragic story tugged at her heartstrings.

Henry Trask was a huge Philadelphia Phillies fan. He and his only daughter were regular fixtures at the ballpark, and Henry, a conductor on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited, often liked to boast about how the team preferred to take his train when they traveled for road trips.

Seeing this movie over and over again helped Mary feel closer to her dad.

Sam’s hand brushed her breast and Mary shrugged him off. “I’m trying to watch the movie! Cut it out!” she whispered harshly. She shifted in her seat and distanced herself from Sam.