“Rich and sweet and smoky. Chipotle peppers are my favorite. They go so well with a good dark chocolate. It’s perhaps not for everyone; you need to make sure the balance is just right. But if it is, it adds another level of flavor.”

  I dropped a book and kept my back turned, using my teaspoon to look behind me.

  Andrew hadn’t looked away from Bea, even after that tremendous bang.

  But Rebecca did. Iris handed her a slice of chocolate cream pie, and Rebecca took the plate and fork and glanced at the book I’d dropped.

  It was the new Sherlock Holmes I’d borrowed from my library. I didn’t pick it up, just pulled out a few coloring sheets and painted daisies as I sipped from a cup of hot cocoa. I wasn’t an artist, but the paints were bright and before I’d painted a fourth petal, Rebecca placed her plate on my table. She picked up the book.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” she said.

  Ma’am. Ow, that hurt.

  She tugged at her ear. “You dropped this.”

  “Ah. Like Sherlock from the falls.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Right? Wasn’t that the most interesting ending?”

  “Or was it a beginning?” I asked with a smile.

  She slipped into my table. “Are these for me?” she asked of the watercolors and extra papers.

  I faltered for a second, then I slid them to her. I hadn’t needed to invite her to sit with me.

  She licked her fork and then started painting.

  “You know what’s going on?” I asked quietly. I didn’t need to bother lowering my voice. Bea and Andrew were positively captured by their discussion of different types of chocolate.

  “My mom told me,” Rebecca whispered. “I’m supposed to keep quiet and out of the way. I’m glad for the paints, though. Last time they did this, the girl just sat there and looked at me. Like she didn’t even think I was worth conversing with. We like your batch better.” She took a giant bite of her pie.

  I reached for my pastry. “This isn’t the first round of Wives?”

  She laughed. Andrew looked over and then settled in once he knew that his sister was taken care of. “Not at all. There were the Grant sisters, and the Youngberg cousins.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. You’ve got your work cut out for you. Andrew is really smart, but not when it comes to girls. Do you want some of my pie?”

  I smiled and then took a bite. Oh, that was good. Chilled and thick and creamy. Chocolate with cinnamon, who would have thought? I licked my lips. “You know, I’ve been in your shoes.”

  She finished drawing five straight vertical lines and didn’t answer.

  “My brother was matched like this too. I was”—I did the math quickly—“thirteen years old when he met Doris and her friends. They were all so beautiful, and so old. I thought they were very sophisticated.”

  “I think most of you all are boring.”

  “Well, most of the time, sophisticated and boring are the same thing.”

  She made a face. “Then I hope I never get sophisticated.”

  “Me too.”

  I took another bite of my slice of an ice cream bomb as those sharp lines she painted turned into a building. No, it was a street.

  I licked my lips. “Excellent use of perspective.”

  “Thanks.” Rebecca painted windows and lights, and before my eyes that street shifted into a cityscape.

  “Wow.” I touched the corner of her paper. “You’re quite the artist.”

  “I just paint landscapes,” Rebecca said. “I can’t do people.”

  “Well, that’s still lovely work. Is this somewhere you’ve been?”

  “Nah, just in my imagination.”

  I scooted forward. “You know, I bet you could become an architect one day.” She looked up with a sharp look.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “You could.” I grinned. One of my talents was being able to see a person’s potential. I used that skill often enough as a Matchmaker, but it was the same talent put to a new purpose. “Could you imagine designing buildings, setting up the lines in a night sky that could last for a hundred years? You could take these buildings from your imagination and make them real.” Her buildings could be like my words, monuments that could never crumble.

  “That’s not for me.” She lowered her voice like a coconspirator. “The society already gave me my title.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m going to be a Mother,” she said softly. “Raise some powerful sons.”

  I sat back. She was smiling, but for me, it felt as though someone had wiped away the skyline.

  And I didn’t know why. There was nothing wrong with wanting to be a Mother. I loved children, and I wanted to raise some of my own someday.

  So why did this feel so wrong?

  She went back to drawing, sharp straight lines, adding shadows to windows and birds in the sky of a world where she would never matter as much as the children she could create.

  “Or daughters,” I said firmly. “You could raise powerful daughters.”

  She gave me a puzzled look, and my comment wasn’t the right words anyway. She wasn’t my mother. She wasn’t set inside her choices yet.

  She was eleven years old. How could they decide who she would be when she wasn’t nearly old enough to know who she was yet? Her whole life was in front of her, but the society I loved so much had decided that her life would never matter as much as her brother’s. She was eleven, and she couldn’t even imagine she could dream of a life where she could matter just for who she was and for what she could do. What she could create. She could create more than children.

  She was eleven, and we’d already decided which men she would spend her whole life serving.

  Bea and Andrew giggled over their shared slice of pie.

  I wiped off the wrinkles on the sides of my eyes and untwisted my hair so it hung down to my cheeks.

  I owed it to the girls who came after me to do everything in my power to make sure their lives mattered. I could change the society if I was at its head. Because what they’d done to this little girl was not right.

  The society I loved was wrong about this.

  And if they were wrong about this, then what else were they wrong about?

  I slid off my coat and angled my chair so Andrew could see that the girl who was taking such fine care of his sister was the prettiest girl in the room.

  “I’ll pay you a dollar if you laugh right now,” I said like Greta would have.

  Rebecca threw her head back and cackled so hard that everyone turned to look.

  And when Andrew met my eye I smiled the smile that the society gave me.

  He swallowed hard.

  I didn’t have to look at Bea’s face to know I’d just hurt her, but I didn’t look away, and I did not wince.

  When my turn at Andrew came, I would end this whole competition.

  I had to.

  That city Rebecca was drawing would not build itself.

  And girls were too often forgotten in their brothers’ shadows.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Getting a boy to smile at you was one thing, but convincing said boy to commit to you for a lifetime was an entirely different beast to wrangle. After the plans were finalized for my meeting with Andrew the next day, and the outfit chosen, I tucked into my blankets with the strict instruction to sleep so there wouldn’t be dark circles under my eyes come morning.

  If only my thoughts would stop making dark circles inside my mind.

  I would fail at this, and I would deserve it.

  They weren’t exactly happy thoughts, or soft kind voices, that paced back and forth in my mind and twisted my ankles in the sheets. But I’d battled such inner voices before. Sometimes I sang songs to silence the flow of words in my head, sometimes I read until the words on the page were louder than my own thoughts, but since the Matrons would see the light, or hear my warbling singing, I used my favorite technique.

  I cataloged my kisses.

  There was a soft kiss from a man who married my friend, and a sloppy kiss with grappling hands that sent my body humming but later I’d joke about with my friends, a chaste practice kiss from a boy who would never feel romantically for me, but my goodness did he have great hair and soft lips, and an undertow-pulling kiss from a young and handsome boy I couldn’t think about again. I couldn’t get lost in Patch, not tonight.

  The first time I learned how to kiss I was twelve years old. The room was full then of all the girls in my training class, taught by the lone single Wife from the class that came before ours. Ethel was a very pretty twenty-five-year-old with a waist corseted so tight she couldn’t speak in long sentences. I’ve worn my share of tummy smoothers and have always found them quite comfortable once they’re in the right position, so I don’t know what her issue was. Might have had an undiagnosed breathing condition.

  “Roll up your sleeves.” She inhaled shallow breaths as we held our wrists, bare forearms horizontal, close in front of our lips. “Now, everyone, we start with a peck.”

  She kissed her arm and we copied her.

  “This is called the strawberry kiss. Sweet and tart. The goal here is to prove your innocence and to leave a lasting impression.” She breathed in. “Now, peck once more, but this time turn your head to the side as you pull away.”

  We did. My skin tingled, goose bumps bursting from my skin.

  “Can you feel the difference between a press and a brush? Movement makes the kiss more tactile, and”—she drew in a long breath—“when you turn your head to the side it gives a demure look. Like so.” She turned her head to one side prettily and lifted her shoulders slightly. “Let’s practice.”

  I glanced about, but all the girls in my Wife Class did it so I kissed my arm again too.

  “Add a smile, Nora,” Ethel said as she walked down the aisle. “Don’t look skittish. A touch of fear is fine, but you must”—she paused for breath—“look happy. This is a victory for the man. Make sure he feels it.”

  When we’d kissed our arms well enough that she felt satisfied, we moved on. “This is called the peach kiss.” She demonstrated on her own arm. “Count two seconds. Not out loud. Not on your fingers.”

  We giggled, and Bea mumbled under her breath, “It was one time.” She sat on the chair at my left side.

  “Lips soft and puckered. When you reach two, smile and pull back. Again, the motion of your smiling makes the kiss tactile. Smiling leaves it as a victory … while also pulling your lips away. It’s sweetness and makes a promise of more to come. Practice.”

  The girl on the other side of me, who I’d thought at the time was named Mira but I wasn’t certain, opened her mouth and shook her head back and forth in some passionate mock display.

  I barked out a laugh. The whole class looked over at us as we lowered our arms.

  The teacher smiled. “We’ll get to that one soon enough. But the way I teach it isn’t quite so … enthusiastic.”

  The class snickered and Mira grinned with them, but I saw her smile shift into a grimace, and from that point on she stayed focused. Mostly.

  “Next is the blackberry kiss. Also called the Wife kiss.”

  “Why are they named after fruit?” I asked.

  “To report progress. We don’t kiss and tell. But we do kiss and bake.” We giggled, but then silenced when she lifted an eyebrow. “Now, pay attention. There will be a baking quiz this Friday. You’ll need to bake a pie and demonstrate the kiss that it … signifies.”

  Bea raised her hand. “What if we don’t have all the ingredients? Some of these fruits are seasonal and—”

  “—The society will have what you need delivered to your house. See me after class.”

  “Could I have my ingredients delivered to Bea’s house as well?” I asked. Bea’s eyes seemed hurt, like I was offering her a charity. It was nothing of the sort. “She’s the best baker, and I want top marks.” I grinned, and she blushed a little.

  Our teacher wasn’t amused. “There are no shortcuts, girls. You will each need to learn to be a passable baker. There are many ways to a man’s heart…”

  “And how would you know?” a girl with shining blond curls asked. She’d been silent for most of the class, but it was impossible to ignore the fine tailoring of her dress. “My mother says it’s a waste to be taught by the loser of her class. My mother says that we’re dumbing down each generation of Wives by that practice. She says we should have the Wife who made the best match teach us.”

  Our teacher’s face was well trained and didn’t show any sign of that insulting wretch’s diatribe affecting the line of her smile or the softness of her brows. “If each generation of Wives is dumber than the last … then what does that make you, Greta?”

  We snickered, all except for Bea, who looked over at Greta with sympathy and compassion. I’d thought it strange at the time. Greta had been rude to our teacher. Teachers were the sacred holders of all new information. They should be revered and respected.

  But now, I could see Bea’s vision. The teacher was twenty-five years old. And she had berated a twelve-year-old child for asking a question and repeating the words of her mother. Quality needed to rise above petty hurts. Quality needed to regard our power above our feelings. Quality forgave a child for being childish.

  Bea would forgive me. She was in all ways quality. But even if she wouldn’t, maybe I could forgive myself.

  I wasn’t that far from the twelve-year-old girl who learned to kiss on my own arm.

  I covered my head with the blankets and tried to ignore the murmuring voices from Bea and Mira’s room. They hadn’t said much to me on the drive home. Mira wouldn’t talk to me, and I did not blame her one penny. Bea would, but I couldn’t speak to her. I couldn’t apologize when I knew I’d do it again.

  Did that make me a bad person?

  Although when you think about it, they only came here because I made them. I made Bea and Mira take this assignment. And if it wasn’t for my insistence, this would be a two-way challenge that I would have won already.

  All I did was smile at him.

  And I had a very good reason to do it.

  Mira and Bea wouldn’t help as I got ready, which was already far worse than smiling at a boy, when you thought about it. Which I did. Over and over and over again, my never-silencing brain making sure of that.

  In the morning, I was painted and tucked tight, shining with my own light, and stubbornly determined to make this happen. I held my grandmother’s hair clips, and I slid them snug on one side of my head. The Beauty Makers embellished my lips and eyes, curled my hair to glowing.

  When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone crafted and beautiful and lovely. I did not see a bad person in that glittering white dress.

  I saw a bride.

  I saw a doll.

  I saw someone who would make my mother proud. The only way my mother would let me.

  But no matter how I looked, I did not see myself.

  So I turned away from the mirror and thought about the cityscape Rebecca had painted in soft blue watercolors. She was going to throw it away, so I’d tucked it into my purse, and now it sat on my bookshelf next to the letter from my mother that I had not returned yet, the business card from that editor, and my own book of poems.

  I was doing this for Rebecca, and for the girls like her. We needed to make sure that we could choose our futures based on what was best for us, not what was best for the men around us.

  All I needed was for one man to fall for me in order to do that.

  My friends would forgive me eventually.

  They had to. I was doing this for them.

  And I was doing this for me.

  * * *

  The library had always seemed a sacred place to me. All these stories, all those voices hidden behind bindings, monuments to a person’s thoughts, sitting on shelves ready to be taken. Just walking in was like visiting a friend, or coming home. But I think I feel more at rest in a library than I do in my own bedroom.

  That’s why I chose it as the place to meet Andrew.

  Maybe libraries were my home. Though I’d never crossed the threshold of this building, even a new library felt familiar somehow, and that gave me strength. I’d meet Andrew, officially, in this place that filled me up.

  My thoughts were still and steady as I walked through shelf after shelf, looking for Andrew. He wasn’t on the first floor, and from Iris’s signal, I knew he wasn’t on the second floor either.

  I walked carefully up the oak staircase to the top floor, and when I reached the landing, I paused and gathered my breath, pressing down my dress and making sure my hair clips hadn’t slipped from behind my ear.

  Here goes, I thought. Let’s go meet your future husband.

  It was bright on the top floor of the library, with plenty of large round windows letting in warm sunlight that shone on wooden shelves and softly bound books. The top floor of the library stored the periodicals, newspapers from decades and the century past, and important papers locked in files. It was quiet here, so quiet I could hear the sound of someone flipping pages of a book. The long shelves opened into empty tables, streaks of sunlight illuminating dust motes that floated as gentle as fairy wings. It warmed the bindings of the books and the air and my tense muscles.

  I stepped forward, and there, sitting in the base of a curved window, totally absorbed inside a story, was Patrick Elliot Villipin.

  My hand flew up to my chest, and I ducked back behind a shelf.

  How? How had he sneaked past the Gossips? How had they missed him?

  But for a single second as I took in Patch as he leaned against the curved sill with his knees up against the wall, with the book not five inches from his face, his simple tan-collared shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the black sweater folded carefully across his lap as he read Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, in that moment, his being there made a perverse kind of sense. He loved my favorite book. Perhaps this was a sign that he was there when I was made of nothing but nerves and need.

  I slipped back behind a shelf.

  This was not the time to get romantic. I had a mission. I needed to find Andrew.

 

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