The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Author:Jodi Lynn Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

13

PAULINE LOST THE TIP OF HER FINGER AT HER AUNT’S TEA FACTORY. THAT WAS the first casualty of her life in Milwaukee. The second casualty was what some would have called more of a gain than a loss: She got herself a boyfriend.

Pauline’s aunt lived in a penthouse apartment in a high-rise, looking down on the highway that swooped south to Chicago.

For Pauline—she said in her long letters, which arrived in envelopes she made herself out of magazine pages—the weeks themselves took on a grayness. She missed the fields and the cardinals hopping around in the snow, open views, and the beauty of the lake. She was adjusting okay to her new school. Her aunt was grooming her to move in and learn to take over the tea factory someday, and the prospect depressed her.

The factory made all kinds: Earl Grey, Assam, Prince of Wales. The tea dust got in Pauline’s nose and in the wet corners of her eyes, so that every Saturday and Sunday night when she came home, washing her face made the white washcloth gray. She was learning from the bottom up: Her first job was to stand on the assembly line and hold down the tops of the tea bags so that they went evenly into the machine that sewed the holes together. She was standing there daydreaming when she let her hand wander in too close, and that was how she came to lose the fingertip.

It’s not that bad, she wrote. I think it’s kind of unique.

Apparently, when he heard through the school grapevine that Pauline had been in the hospital in Milwaukee to get her finger sewn up, James Falk sent her a dozen stargazer lilies, a flower she said she’d never seen before that day but which was the most beautiful she’d ever laid eyes on.

Pauline was still utterly uninterested in James. A fact that he took in stride the first time he visited (on the pretext of being in the city to see his cousin), even when Pauline told him point blank she wasn’t attracted to him. The second time, she told him bluntly that he was too boring, and apparently—she wrote—he liked her all the more for it. Her indifference only seemed to charm him, and he showed up again and again—making the long drive from Gill Creek on lots of Red Bull. Pauline said she had never been so doggedly chased by someone before. Aunt Cylla adored him.

From the sound of it, Aunt Cylla made Pauline’s mom look like a wild optimist.

Here’s some of her favorite advice, Pauline wrote.

“You’re no different from anyone else.”

“Too soon old, too late smart.”

But she was also loving, and gave Pauline the best bedroom, with a window that looked out across the city. Pauline wrote in so much detail—as if hungry to get it all down—that Maggie could picture it all vividly. They played cards at night, and Aunt Cylla asked Pauline all sorts of questions about James and told her to watch out for men.

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