1520 Main

4

"Father," Marina said respectfully over breakfast, trying for the umpteenth time to get what she wanted, "it's really only politeness."

"Will there be dancing there?" he asked calmly.

"I ... don't know." That was true. She didn't know if there would be dancing at Dot's Friday-night church get-together.

"Marina, I'm very happy that you're being so patient at working with Dot. She seems to be coming around to Jesus."

Not at all. Dot went to church with Marina every Wednesday night because Dot's parents liked Marina and were being more gracious than Marina's parents.

"But I am not going to allow you to go socialize with her people. Dot is a lovely girl in spite of her upbringing and I think she can be saved."

Marina was innocent about a lot of things, like why Dot insisted men were only out to get girls, but she understood manners because it was what she'd been taught all her life. If one kept constant company with a person, it was good manners to reciprocate an invitation whether one wanted to or not.

It was finally time she turned to her mother. She explained this carefully, as respectfully as she could. There was no shouting in this house, unlike Dot's, where shouting was a sport. She would prefer shouting because the tense politeness hid too much. Her father only shouted from the pulpit, but that was the voice of God thundering through him, so it didn't count.

Her mother listened politely, then her gaze flicked up to her father's. They communicated in that silent way that made Marina uncomfortable. Not for the first time, she wished she had siblings so that she was not always the focus of their attention.

"And," she added for good measure, having only just thought of it, "if her parents were to see me as a good example, they might come around too."

"You do have a point," her father said gravely after a moment or two of thought. "I'll pray on it."

And God would tell him no. God gave her father everything he asked for. Occasionally, God gave Marina what she asked for, but not until she asked her parents first. That was how Godly families functioned.

The only other thing she wanted was to keep Trey Dunham's attention and she couldn't ask her parents for that even if she wanted to. While she knew that her parents had begun courting when her mother was sixteen, her father had been eighteen, not twenty-four. She wasn't quite sure how her parents would react if a twenty-four-year-old came calling, even if he did have a respectable and well-to-do business and was looking for a wife.

Marina wasn't anywhere close to becoming a wife, but she was holding yesterday afternoon close and hoping Mr. Dunham would pop into Kresge's this afternoon. Dot didn't like him, but wouldn't say why after meeting and talking to him. That bothered Marina. Dot took a dislike to very few people—none that Marina could think of immediately—so why was she stuck on him?

Marina bit her lip and looked down at her plate.

Mr. Dunham was very handsome. He hadn't fawned over Dot like every other boy, handsome or not. Was Dot ... jealous? It was a thought she didn't want to think, but ...

"No, I'm not jealous!" Dot hissed at lunch, "and I'm hurt that you think I would be. There's something wrong with him."

"Like what?" Marina asked, exasperated.

"He's lying. He's lying about who he is and what he wants."

"How do you know?"

Dot shook her head in frustration. "I don't know. It's just ... I have a feeling."