Stay Sweet(45)

Amelia’s phone rings again, but this time, not with a call: a video chat. She slides her finger across the screen and sees Cate in the stand office, her feet up on the desk.

“Is that some kind of new uniform Grady’s having you try out?” Cate cackles.

“Shush up! I just took it off. I told you, it’s a million degrees up here!”

“Relax, I’m just teasing. Come on. Show me something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know! I want to see her house!”

Amelia reverses the camera and pans the office.

“Boring. What else?”

Amelia almost doesn’t say it. “Well, her childhood bedroom is across the hall.”

“Why are you holding out on me?”

Amelia bites her finger. “Okay, hold on.” Aiming the camera in front of her, she walks down the hall. She turns the knob and pushes the door wide open.

“Holy crap,” says Cate.

It’s a big, dreamy space with six-paned windows on both sides of the sloping ceiling. One has views of the roadside and the other overlooks the back fields. Molly clearly got the best room in the house, likely because she was the Meades’ only girl.

Amelia walks over to the vanity. It’s neatly arranged with dozens of thick glass bottles, ceramic tubs, a tortoise comb. A square gold compact with pink pressed powder sits next to a bottle of Mavis talcum powder. There are two Revlon lipsticks in colors named Rosy Future and Bright Forecast. That had to be, Amelia thinks, some marketing strategy for the girls left at home during World War II. She picks up a pineapple-shaped glass bottle of deep amber liquid with a tiny pink bow fastened just under the nozzle. The name sends her eyes rolling—Vigny’s Beau Catcher—though she’s curious enough to take a sniff. The scent is warm and sweet. Orange blossoms and honeysuckle and sandalwood.

“What’s that on her vanity mirror?” Cate asks. “Pictures?”

Amelia sets the perfume down and aims the camera. Wedged into the mirror frame are more black-and-white photos. Molly and her girlfriends at the lake. Molly holding a baby calf.

“Any of that hottie Wayne Lumsden?” Cate asks.

“No. Maybe because it was too painful to see his picture,” Amelia reasons.

“Closet, please!” Cate says.

Inside are the most gorgeous clothes. Silk and satin party dresses with billowing skirts, day dresses in crisp cotton, tea-length skirts, soft blouses. Wedge sandals and pointy high heels. A woven straw sun hat.

“Anything else?” Cate asks, a little bored.

Amelia spins around and walks toward Molly’s four-poster bed. It’s twin-sized, with one pancake pillow and white sheets with yellow scalloped edges that are hand-sewn. Her quilt is gorgeous, a checkerboard of pastel squares that make flower shapes and sunbursts on white backing. Next to that is a nightstand, white wood, with one pull drawer and a pink glass knob.

“It’s kind of weird, don’t you think?” Amelia muses. “This looks like the room of someone who died during high school, not who lived until she was almost ninety.”

“Hey, Amelia, try lifting up her mattress!”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where girls keep their secrets!”

Amelia turns her phone around so Cate sees her. “What secrets do you keep under your mattress?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Cate says coyly. “Come on! The recipes could be there!”

Amelia sets the phone down on the carpet and kneels on the floor next to the bed. The mattress is heavy, but she manages to lift it a few inches.

“Anything?” Cate asks.

Amelia stares down at a pale pink and clothbound book, the word DIARY stamped in gold script on the cover.

“Nope,” Amelia says, letting it fall. And then, quickly, “Hey, Cate, I should go. The sooner I find these recipes, the sooner I can come back down. Text me if things get busy.”

“Don’t forget to put your shirt back on before Grady gets home,” Cate teases.

The diary has that old-book smell that’s hard to describe. Amelia flips through it without reading. The paper feels brittle against her fingers. The pages were probably white once, but they’ve turned something closer to khaki. The handwriting is a neater, crisper version of Molly’s familiar old-lady cursive.

Amelia knows she shouldn’t. Molly Meade was so private. But Cate’s right, Molly’s diary may be the key to finding the recipes. Curiosity tugging at her, she turns to the first page.

September 22, 1944

Every other boy was already on the bus, hidden behind fogged-up windows, though some had wiped space off for a last goodbye wave to their families. The bus driver had one boot up on the tire, one boot on the street, while Tiggy tried to make small talk with the driver, bless her, to give Wayne and me a few seconds more together.

“You know, the sooner I leave, the faster I’ll be back.” He said it as a joke, but I started to cry. He was ready to go. Eager to fight. And I didn’t want to let him.

“Promise me,” I said. “Promise me you’ll come back.”

“Of course I will, Moll Doll,” he said, taking my face in his hands, wiping away my tears with his thumbs. He kissed me on the lips, then brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it, almost on top of the engagement ring. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, this was a trick to make me let go of him.