Mrs. Farrow.
It would be a marvelous future indeed.
12:Isadore
NOVEMBER 1940
Surely, the doctor was mistaken.
Izzy rolled her hand over her waist as she waited in Simon’s parlor. Pancake flat, aside from the hem of her pink cardigan.
But Dr. Gauldin was insistent that she speak with the manwho’d done this to her. As if she hadn’t any say in the matter.
She had plenty to say. From that first evening, almost a year ago, when Simon brought chocolates to the dormitory. And she’d done the right thing from the beginning. After he’d seen her performance as Juliet at the campus theater, he’d asked her out to the movies, driving her all the way up to Cleveland—so different from the waste of her parents’ paper-mill town. They’d sipped sodas and laughed their way throughYou Can’t Take It with You.
Days later, she’d stopped laughing at the eccentrics of the characters and started to wonder if she and Simon were like Tony and Alice in the film. All the Winfield girls swooned over Simon when he was in town,but he had chosen her. Just as handsome and rich as Tony from the movie, Simon seemed to have stepped right off the silver screen. And she was as witty, pretty, and determined as Alice. While their road had been bumpy, all worked out for Tony and Alice in the end.
Everything changed between her and Simon in April. A spring snow stranded them in Cleveland, an hour from campus. Her housemother didn’t know who’d taken her to the city, but Izzy told the old bat that she and her boyfriend had stayed with friends during the storm. A married couple, of course, with two guest rooms. All neat and tidy for the record.
Thankfully, she and Simon had found a motel, but with so many others looking for shelter, they’d had no choice but to share. He’d promised propriety, but in that room, the snow falling outside, her heart mush, everything changed between them.
With a strict warning from the housemother to avoid Cleveland, the weekend dates turned into Friday afternoons at Simon’s house, after he returned from one of his many business trips buying and selling different properties up north. Summer break had felt endless without him, her days spent caring for her younger siblings in her hometown of Elms. She’d returned to school early, staying with a friend until her senior year began.
And she’d been smart. Each time she was with Simon, she’d made him promise: if they continued to share a bed, they would share a future. He had wanted to marry her right away, but if she accepted his proposal, she would have to step away from her studies. Not that she needed a degree if she married into the Farrow family, but her parents had reminded her many times that it was a rare privilege to obtain an academic scholarship that covered tuition and all her fees.
Between her studies and various roles in the campus theater, they wanted her to find a good husband. Get married after she graduated, or, at the very least, a job that didn’t require her to work at the paper mill. Then, she was supposed to help support her four siblings so the boys could also attend college.
The path was paved for her, and until now, she had planned to stick to it.
While Simon intended to marry her in June, the doctor said their knot needed to be tied before graduation. If that was true, Simon would be pleased and her parents frustrated until they realized who she was marrying. Then they’d applaud her cleverness for catching one of the richest men—and certainly the most charming—in Winfield. She’d host the grandest parties in this very home. Invite the most distinguished guests. In the end, she’d have no use for a diploma.
Simon’s housemaid walked by, carrying a porcelain vase filled with freesia. Perfumed like honey. Mint. A hint of pepper.
The sweetness pitched through her, pleasant at first, then horrid. A heave roared from her stomach, pressing against her lips, and she flew out of the room to a familiar door. Leaning over another porcelain piece, she emptied her lunch before flushing it away.
Either she’d been plagued with an endless flu or Dr. Gauldin was right in his assessment. Which meant Simon was forever hers.
After a rinse of her mouth, powder for her cheeks, she straightened her sweater and marched back into the parlor. She must speak with Simon today. Insisted on it, in fact, to the housemaid who’d answered the door. Simon would know what to do.
“He’s not here.”
Izzy flinched, startled by the familiar voice from her classroom as Professor Simon Farrow stepped into the room. But she’d wanted to speak withherSimon, not his father. “I thought—”
“What did you think, Miss Brooks?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She plucked her bag from the chair. “I’ll wait until Simon returns.”
She’d received no message from him in days, hadn’t even received a box of those chocolates he liked to send. Surely he’d be back soon.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” the professor asked.
“I’m skipping today, same as you.”
Professor Farrow, his white hair disheveled, glanced toward the hall and sniffed the air. The sour smell had stolen into this pristine space, overpowering the lovely bouquet.
“You are unwell,” he said.
“A stomach bug, I fear.”
