At the bottom of the page lay a sketch of a purple flower that looked like a thistle. A teasel flower, it said next to it. In case you didn’t know what it looks like.

“My, my, my,” Gladys pronounced as she set the letter down. “Aren’t you the little vixen, Margaret Beck? You and your soldier boy sound like you’re getting pretty cozy with each other.”

Dottie rolled her eyes and tossed a pillow at Gladys. “There is not one word in there that suggests that Margaret and William are anything more than friends.”

Gladys held the letter close to her face and reread one line with dramatic inflection. “I feel like I matter to somebody.”

“I found that rather sweet,” Dottie responded. “But nothing more than that. I know Margaret. We’ll realize that the right man has come her way when she gets a particular kind of smile on her face.”

Margaret turned her head toward Dottie. “What do you mean?”

Dottie set down the sock she’d been knitting and looked up in the air before deciding what to say. “I’ve only seen it a few times, but when you really like something, you get a crooked smile. The right side of your mouth stretches all the way to your cheekbone. And the left side is almost its mirror—but you hold just a bit of it back. As if whatever it is might be too good to be true.”

Margaret wrinkled her eyebrows and couldn’t imagine what Dottie was describing. Wasn’t a smile just a smile?

“Oh yes! I know what you’re talking about,” said Gladys as she clapped her hands. “I’ve seen it maybe three times. Once when there was a spectacular sunset a few years back after that storm that took out some houses in Long Island. When you tasted cotton candy for the first time at Coney Island. And whenever Cary Grant came on the screen in Penny Serenade. Or any other movie that he’s in.”

It surprised Margaret that they knew her so well. Better than she knew herself. “That’s silly,” she protested, though. “Anyone would smile over those things.”

“Cary Grant is no thing, doll. He’s a tall, dark, and handsome drink of water.”

“But he’s not real. I mean, to people like us. And a sunset or cotton candy. They’re as ordinary as they come.”

“That’s your charm, though, Margaret,” added Dottie. “You’re not moved by the extraordinary. It’s the everyday things that put that particular smile on your face.”

“Did it happen when I read William’s letter?” Margaret didn’t feel like his words evoked anything more than the warmth of camaraderie, but it was also difficult to judge oneself with accuracy.

“No,” Gladys conceded. “You did smile. But it’s not your special one.”